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Kent McCorkle's Premium Moisturizing Lotion is Early Success

Tuesday, August 09, 2016

Kid stuff: Kent and Kim McCorkle were inspired to launch BareBaby Organics after the birth of their young children, Connor and Chloe. Their adopted teenage niece, Isabel, helps with their growing family business.

With an infant and a toddler at home, Kim and Kent McCorkle were definitely in the market for baby lotion.

But they wanted only the best lotion to touch their children's skin, so they purchased organic-sounding products that looked safe. However, checking the ingredients, Kent, a 1991 chemistry alumnus, wasn't pleased with what he saw.

"Reading the ingredients, I said, 'Hey, this doesn't sound good,'" recalls Kent, who earned his Ph.D. in chemistry at Auburn in 2003. "In fact, we couldn't really find anything we were happy with."

So the McCorkle's got busy making their own premium lotion. Using the Environmental Working Group's Skin Deep cosmetics database and Whole Foods' Body Care Standards, they started developing a lotion that would include only the highest-rated and safest ingredients.

"It had to be good enough for our children," says Kent, whose day job is Professor of Chemistry at MiraCosta College in Oceanside, California. "We wanted all of our ingredients to be as safe and nontoxic as possible."

After months of trial-and-error, including 27 different formulations and more than a dozen prototypes, the final result was BareBaby Organics' premium moisturizing lotion now for sale through Amazon and the BareBaby Organics website at www.barebabyorganics.com/.

"We just wanted to make sure we were giving our children the best stuff," Kent says.

After the first few months of sales, BareBaby Organics is receiving overwhelmingly positive customer reviews on Amazon, averaging 4.8 out of five stars. And, surprisingly for the McCorkle's, the lotion is getting a lot of use by adults, not just children.

"Reading the customer emails, social media comments, and Amazon reviews is so encouraging," Kent says. "It's amazing to know that something we created for our little ones is now helping not only babies, but toddlers, teens, moms, dads, and grandparents across the country."